Department for Education

Schools: Construction

Munira Wilson: To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what estimate she has made of the average cost per (a) square metre and (b) pupil for schools built under the (i) School Rebuilding, (ii) Priority School Building and (iii) Building Schools for the Future Programmes.

Nick Gibb: The National School Delivery Cost Benchmarking report published in October 2022 shows the average cost per square metre of new school building projects built using the Departmental construction framework between 2012 and 2020. The report can be found here: https://documents.hants.gov.uk/property-services/NationalSchoolDeliveryBenchmarkingreport.pdf. The data presented in this report also shows that the Department has been delivering building projects in primary schools between 13 to 30% more cheaply than Local Authorities over the time frame of 2012 to 2020.The Department has continuously improved its approach to building schools since the Sebastian James review of Capital in 2011, which highlighted many issues with the Building Schools for the Future (BSF) programme introduced under the last Government in 2004. The review identified that projects delivered under the programme were overly bureaucratic and not designed to target poor condition, did not support high quality, did not meet standardised specifications that work for education, and did not deliver value for money and economies of scale from central procurement and delivery. These are all are now prioritised when building schools. Millions of pounds have also been spent addressing failures in design left by the BSF programme to ensure schools are suitable to deliver an effective education.The National Audit Office’s published report on Capital Funding for Schools found that, on average, whole school rebuilds delivered by the Priority School Building Programme were around one third cheaper per square metre than schools built under the Building Schools for the Future Programme.The School Rebuilding Programme builds on the success of the Priority School Building Programme. It is delivering schools to an even better specification, with buildings that are designed to be carbon net zero in operation and more resilient to the effects of climate change. The sample size for completed projects delivered by the School Rebuilding Programme is currently too small to draw any conclusions on the average cost of this programme.

Department of Health and Social Care

Active Travel: Disability

Rachael Maskell: To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent assessment he made of the potential merits of active travel for wheelchair users; and if his Department will provide funding to Active Travel England for initiatives to help improve the physical and mental health of wheelchair users.

Neil O'Brien: The Department for Transport (DfT) leads in Government on active travel, working with and through Active Travel England. Active travel comprises walking, wheeling, and cycling. Increased physical activity, including through active travel, can have significant health benefits. DfT published its Inclusive Transport Strategy in 2020. This strategy will help ensure that disabled people are able to move around freely through the pedestrian environment and use it to access other modes of transport. If using a cycle, whether as a mobility aid or not, they will be able to use inclusive cycle infrastructure to support their journey. We have made no specific assessment of the potential merits of active travel for wheelchair users.

Autism and Learning Disability

Vicky Foxcroft: To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what progress his Department has made on implementing the recommendations in the report by Red Quadrant entitled Building the Right Support: An analysis of funding flows, published in July 2022.

Maria Caulfield: We recognise the need to improve how data is collected and better understand the specific costs related to Building the Right Support. That is why the Building the Right Support Delivery Board set up a Funding Flows task and finish group to look at how to improve national oversight of National Health Service and local authority spend.The Funding Flows task and finish group has been assessing the feasibility of collating information from existing NHS and Local Government datasets to support this and will make recommendations for next steps to the Building the Right Support Delivery Board in due course.